


Surrender

by transkylo (captainandor)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Flashbacks, M/M, Post TFA, Redemption, So much angst, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 10:49:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5624305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainandor/pseuds/transkylo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Hux who saves him. Hux who finds him, lying cold and alone in the snow as the planet crumbles around them. </p><p>In the end, this will be bitter, bitter irony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> That angsty Kylo redemption fic you all wanted. Thank you to the wonderful kyluxcollective for prompting me to write this! 
> 
> This was supposed to be longer but it ended up just being weird and angsty. The bits in italic are flashbacks but tbh the whole thing is made up of character study and flashbacks so?? I hope you enjoy. (??)
> 
> I'll be in my trash can if anybody needs me (also known as moodykyloren on tumblr)

**(i)**

It’s snowing, and this is all Kylo knows. 

There’s dampness seeping through his trouser legs where he kneels, the chill creeping up his spine and taking hold. He clenches his hands. One of his gloves is torn and the cold bites into his fingertips, unforgiving in its harshness; anchoring him to this one point in time. 

He closes his eyes.

***

 

_“How capable are your soldiers, General?”_

_Hux appears irritated, “I wont have you question my methods,”_

_“They’re obviously skilled at committing high treason,” Kylo replies, tone laced with sarcasm that is obvious, even through the voice distorter, “Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army,”_

_He hears the thought clear as if General Hux had spoken it aloud._ You son-of-a-bitch. 

_A smile dances across his face, obscured by the mask, even as Hux bites out a reply. As he leaves, he can feel the other man’s hatred rolling out of him in waves._

***

 

Removing the mask at all is a mistake. Kylo sometimes wonders if that’s all he will ever amount to. Weakness. Error. Stupid, _stupid_ – He doesn’t know what to make of the way Hux’s eyes darken the first time their eyes meet, unobscured. Doesn’t understand whether or not the flush of warmth that he feels somewhere inside of him is a weakness, too. 

(He wonders if this was the start of his downfall. Here. ) 

Every one of their interactions is a game. Push and pull. Two predators in an endless circle with only one inevitable ending.

***

**(ii)**

 

The final battle against the First Order is frenzied. Kylo fights, bare faced with his scar for all to see, against faceless soldiers who had once been under his own command. He feels Rey’s presence as she fights somewhere in the distance, Poe and Finn too. People who had once been his enemies; now at his shoulders, at his heels. 

“I’m being torn apart,” he had said to Han Solo that day on the bridge, and meant it. Still means it, even now. Kylo – no, no, not Kylo – Ben, _Ben_ – feels like a puppet. Two invisible marionettists tugging at his strings until he can hardly tell which of his actions are his, and his alone. Have any of them ever been? 

He’s a crude amalgamation of opposing forces. A long list of faults that render him damaged, tarnished, a black stain on the sleeve of the Resistance yet a failure in the eyes of the First Order. 

What a cruel twist of fate – a man torn in an endless struggle between Light and Dark in a world where there is no middle ground. 

A shot from a blaster scrapes across his shoulder and he whirls around with a cry, saber coming up in a flawless arc to catch the offending Stormtrooper by the head. _DE-456._ He remembers the name, the insolent speaking tone. Several offenses – impudence and disobeyed orders. The body crumples to the ground, motionless.

***

**(iii)**

It’s Hux who saves him. Hux who finds him, lying cold and alone in the snow as the planet crumbles around them. 

In the end, this will be bitter, bitter irony.

***

**(iv )**

_He wakes to the harsh light of the medbay aboard the Finalizer and several droids hovering over him, applying bandages and cleaning wounds. He hisses in pain and fights to sit up._

_A warm, human hand to his sternum pushes him firmly back down._

_“For once,” a familiar voice to his side is speaking, “Try not to throw a tantrum,”_

_Its Hux. Sitting by his bed in the medbay, looking – concerned? Kylo’s head gives a dull throb, and he winces only to discover that the action makes everything feel much worse. His face – he reaches up. Hux takes a hold of his wrist._

_“You’re to rest,” he says. Were it any other man speaking, Kylo would have called the tone gentle. He closes his eyes again, focusing on the burning pain – his cheek, his shoulder, his hip._ My hate is strong. 

_He can’t help but feel the General’s thoughts as he begins to drift._

_“You were worried,” he says, half sleeping, minutes later. He senses Hux’s confusion, opens one eye and clarifies, “You thought you’d find me dead,”_

_“You’re no good to Leader Snoke dead,” Hux replies, though his mind is filled with images –_ Kylo, lying in the snow. Kylo’s blood – so much red. Panic rising in his throat, a firm voice – Stay calm – don’t panic, stay calm _– hesitantly, he adds, “Or to me,”_

_Kylo’s lip curls up at the side._

***

He feels his Mother’s presence like a heavy weight upon his shoulders.

She loves him. He knows this. She _loves_ him, despite what he’s done. Despite the bloodshed and the anger and the death of his own father – she loves him, still. He doesn’t deserve it. 

It should make him stronger. It should put him at peace – isn’t that what he was taught as a boy?

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

There is no chaos – 

There is no –

***

__

_**(v )** _

_Nothing was ever gentle between them. Not the first time – nor the last. Hard walls and harsh metal, the sting of a slap and copper in his mouth, on his lips, black spots clouding his vision. Nothing born of the dark could ever be so tender._

( _But Kylo Ren was not – Ben Solo was_ not – )

_Sometimes, Kylo stays. Hux never questions it, Kylo never mentions it. Slowly they fall into a routine until sleeping alone at night becomes a rarity. If Snoke knows – of course he does – it’s never brought up. Kylo can only wonder what it means. If it means anything at all._

_He watches Hux’s sleeping form in the dark and thinks – in this, too, he has failed._

***

**(vi)**

 

Kylo knows he is there long before they meet. The world seems to slow as he turns, ignoring the battle – the carnage all around him until he stops.

Hux is bleeding – a deep gash on his forehead. His posture is all wrong. Their gazes lock and Kylo remembers; a canopy of stars, the light of two moons shining through the window. Hux’s hands. His lips – his teeth. 

Neither one of them moves for a long moment. Hux is wielding a blaster in his right hand and the sight of him holding a weapon is strange. Kylo’s own fingers flex on the grip of his lightsaber, the heat of the crossguard flushing his bared skin. 

“Hux,” he says, and it comes out sounding far, far more ruined than he’d intended.

It shouldn’t hurt him like this. Kylo Ren wouldn’t feel so weak at the prospect of killing someone if he needed to – people had always been replaceable and insignificant. He’d killed hundreds (more) without batting an eyelid, without a second thought. Innocent people who had done nothing other than to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kylo Ren’s heart wouldnt stop in his chest at the thought. 

No. Not Kylo Ren. But Ben Solo might. 

Hux straightens up, though Kylo can see that he’s in pain. “So this is what it’s come to?” he calls, taking a few laboured steps closer to close the gap between them. Kylo’s saber comes up at his front, defensive, and Hux flicks his gaze to it. 

“Ren –” Hux says, pauses, tilts his head like a bloodhound catching scent of a kill, “Or is it Ben Solo?” 

Kylo’s lip curls. 

Neither name resonates with him anymore. Ben Solo died years ago – slaughtered by the Knight Kylo Ren; another name, another identity who was, in turn, stripped away and replaced by someone else entire. 

“No,” Kylo says, and wonders if Jedi are supposed to _feel_ this much. He should strike now while he can, take down their general. Weaken their resolve. No one else could lead the First Order to greatness – his potential successors are all idiotic and incapable of leadership. He could – 

“One of us has to make the first move,” Hux says, and only then does Kylo realise that he has broadcasted these thoughts. He feels Hux’s own, now, playing out in front of him like a theatrical performance. Countless stolen moments. Things were always so cold. Dark. Painful – but always with the flicker of something more beneath the surface.

Killing Han Solo had weakened him – would this time be any different? 

Hux raises a brow as Kylo inches the blade of the lightsaber ever closer. 

“Do it,” he says, and it’s a challenge; like everything else between them ever has been. Tooth and claw. Every action a dare, every word, carefully measured to cut deep and sting. 

Before Kylo has the chance to blink, something sears through the air. He feels its trajectory - a disturbance in the force, the impact reverberating out from where it meets the target, mere inches in front of his own ribcage. The erratic beating of his own heart. 

Hux’s entire body jolts with the shock, his eyes widening in agony. Kylo follows his gaze down to the dark stain that’s spreading, rapidly, across his shirt. The blaster is discarded to the ground by their feet as he forces himself to look back up. He laughs and it sounds so terribly broken. 

“Guess now - you won’t have to,” he slurs, before his knees give out.

*** 

**(vii)**

 

 _He’s lucid. Dreaming. A line of children, padawans, training before their master. Reciting the Jedi code word for word as they learn how to fight without seeing._

_It’s so cold, but there’s warmth there, somewhere. A hand on his cheek, an arm around his waist._

_The same children; screaming as they are betrayed by one of their very own._

*** 

**(viii)**

His hands are covered in blood. 

He kneels in the snow, Hux cradled in his arms in some cruel parody of an embrace. He's screaming, keeps on screaming even once his voice becomes hoarse. He doesn’t know how to stop. 

*** 

It’s snowing, and this is all Kylo knows.

*** 

**Author's Note:**

> This tailed off a bit at the end but whatever. I'm not crying you're crying.


End file.
